Saturday, February 28, 2009

It is one of those rare friday nights when i am watching a movie. I could not resist myself from writing this piece after watching the Tamil Movie 'Naayakan'. For those who are not aware of it, it is a masterpiece by Mani Rathnam (was made way back in 1987 and featured in the list of 'All time Top 100 movies' in Time Magazine. ) and stars Kamal Haasan.

A ten year old boy loses his father to a police encounter in front of his eyes, attempts to kill the policeman and flees to Mumbai. Not knowing where to go, he lands in Dharavi just like the thousands who end up @ Dharavi everyday even today. What follows this is a host of intense events like 'Baba' (almost like a father to Kamal in the film) being killed in the poilice station or the one where he meets a 10 Std girl in a brothel who asks him to leave her early so that she could study. These extreme circumstances redefine 'Velu Nayakan' aka Kamal in the film.

B.
I was returning from one of my regular weekend trips to Pune. It was about 15 mins since I had left Swargate (bus terminal in Pune) and we were going past a road which is one of the most busiest roads in Pune. Calamity strikes in the form of a puncture. With great difficulty, driver gets the bus to left side of the road, which was already shortened due to the ever-continuing, eternal road repairs.

I was just casually observing the conductor when i rediscovered something that has always been there in front of us. There was a problem (that was not my discovery..).

Problem : The only replacement tyre is on top of the bus and has to be taken down without disrupting traffic.

Solution 1: Get it down with the help of a rope or some other instrument.

Solution 2: Just allow it to fall freely under gravitational force (to test Newton's Laws) and then replace the punctured tyre.

Solution 1 was not feasible in the absence of a rope or anything that closely resembles the features of a rope. Realising this, the conductor comes to the center of the road and manouvers the traffic with such ease as if he has been doing that all throughout his life. Would have given a complex to almost every traffic policeman. The tyre is changed and now, it is business as usual..

Now comes the real message -

Be it Velu Nayakan in 'Nayakan' or the conductor of Asiad bus, what brings them on the same platform is the exposure to circumstances which pull out tremendous power from within them. This, in normal course of life, would have been very difficult to happen.

The point that i have been pondering over is "why do we have to wait for these events to change the course of our life???".

Why don't we chase our dreams with the same energy and power that we would have experienced in circumstances like the ones mentioned above or in other numerous other similar events.